Slow Smoked Santa
Pyynikin Käsityöläispanimo

50cl can, bb in 10m.

Reddish very dark clear brown. Medium head at best, some lace, but fades mostly quite quickly. Probably some wheat/oats, as a creamy but thin layer sticks around.

Drive-by aroma is already off-putting. This is supposed to be beech-smoked malt, but at a closer whiff the phenols just are not right. It might be partly because there is nothing else there, but this is not really smoky. Leather, like a sweaty horse, is more like it, in a coarse, intrusive way. And worse. I had to ask for a second opinion, and was corroborated. This horse is standing on a steaming pile of its own produce.

Taste is very watery and short. Yes, there is some oats-derived smoothness at the end. But before that only emptiness. Faint licorice.

I guess commercial thinking was that smoked beers are challenging, but let's try to differentiate with the nice joke of Saint Nick being stuck above a slowly burning fireplace. I guess the seasonal feeling comes from the easy association with stables. This is what it must have smelt like at the nativity scene.